What if Sarah Kinney had lived?
by V1ndicat0r
Summary: We know the story, but what if things had played out differently? What if Sarah Kinney had escaped with X-23 to the X-Men. Told from three different perspectives, Sarah, Logan, and Laura.
1. Sarah

When I saw the photograph she smuggled, I knew the truth. Sutter was dead, because Rice had ordered it. He had her kill him, so he could take control. But I also realized something when she had spared Henry. There was humanity there. We had failed in making a weapon. I don't think I had ever been happier to have failed. I knew I had to get her out, take her somewhere we could start over, be a family, have a future. Then Rice showed me something. More clones of her. More weapons. "Why don't you go spend some time with your pet, before you have to leave." He reached his hand out to me. Disgusted by what I had just seen, I gave the son of a bitch a good slap to the face. "Don't you touch me!" I then ran to X-23's cell, but Rice followed behind me. When I got to her cell and opened the door and Rice finally caught up to me, she sniffed the air. "X-23?" Her eyes went red and I knew what it meant. The trigger scent Rice must have laced me. I was going to die here and Rice would get what he wanted. Except she went right past me and instead. "Oh shit!" She attacked Rice. He didn't get the chance after all. As she stood over his dead body. I gave X-23 her last mission. Burn the facility to the ground, destroy the embryos, and escape. She performed it like I knew she would. I then hugged her. I was so proud of her, like a mother would be. "Laura. Your name is Laura, not X-23. My Laura." "What is my mission now?" I just gazed into her eyes. "No. This was the last mission. Now you will be a child, not a weapon." "Are you coming with me?" "Yes I'm going to be there to guide you Laura, because I'm your mother. And that's what a mother does." "Where are we going?" "We're going to... we're going to find your father Laura." "Weapon X?" "Yes."

Eventually we found our way to the Xavier institute and to Logan. Turns out he had been waiting for us since he got the copy of my letter I sent to him, in case I had died. After introductions had been made he wanted to speak with me alone. Logan left Laura with a young girl Kitty Pryde while the two of us discussed about what had happened to Laura and what was going to happen. "I suppose you're angry with me. I stood by for thirteen years and did nothing while Laura was put through hell. Logan I want you to know, that nothing you can say or do can make me feel any worse. I can barely live with myself, I'll never forgive myself. I don't deserve to be forgiven or a second chance for that matter. But I love Laura with all my heart. She's my daughter, no she's our daughter, and I love her." I must have been the one woman he had never slept with, and yet I gave this man a child. "You took her away from that place. You risked your life to give her a better one. And take it from me Sarah I know a thing or two about deserving second chances." "Then you'll let me stay?" "Yeah." "Thank you Logan." "Only one catch, I get a say in what happens to Laura." "You're asking for shared custody of her?" "Yeah." "I suppose you have the right, you are for all intents and purposes her father."

We managed to work out all the legal documentation, listing Logan and I as Laura's parents, and then we enrolled her in the Xavier institute. Logan had his commitments to the X-Men but he spent as much time with Laura as he could. She took to the dutiful daughter role better than I thought, she hung on to his every word and absorbed everything he said. Logan knew better than anyone what Laura was going through of course. He had been made into a weapon but he had learned to be human. Now he was teaching that to her. Of course I did as well. I was given a position at the institute as a nurse and assistant to Dr. Henry McCoy due to my knowledge of the X-gene. Laura excelled in most of her classes and managed to make friends with the children her age. I found friendships myself in Ororo Munroe, Kitty, Rachel Summers, and Lorna Dane. Things were good.

Well things were good but far from perfect. Emma Frost, the headmistress of the school had her problems with Laura. When she looked into Laura's mind, saying she didn't like what she saw was putting it lightly. Emma wanted Laura out of the school but Logan and his teammate Scott Summers overruled that. "Our students face enough danger from outside these walls, I will not bring one inside Scott." "Logan vouched for her. Emma, she stays." I left Emma's office with a bad taste in my mouth. "I'm sorry about that Sarah. It's hard to believe she used to be a supervillain." I appreciated Scott's apology, but at the same time I wondered why he felt the need to. "She certainly has a lot of temerity to judge Laura's character." "Don't worry about it. Frost gives her trouble I'll deal with it."

Things eventually got worse when M-Day came. Overnight 90% of the world's mutants lost there powers. It left less than 200. Luckily Logan and Laura were still among them. Somehow it also brought back Logan's memories as well. He remembered that once he had a family before me and Laura. He even had a son. He tried to reunite with his son only to find out that he hated him. When he came back he looked tired and weary. His shoulders were heavy with grief and sadness at learning that his own son hated him. I don't think I had ever seen him that sad before. "Logan..." "Ya got nuthin to apologize for Sarah. Daken's not your son, he's mine." "Logan you don't actually think you can save him can you?" "I have to try. He's my son, he needs me." … "You're already needed here, by Laura... and by me." Having spent over two years with him, perhaps it shouldn't have surprised me that I had developed feelings for him, that I was beginning to love him. I had done the same for Laura.

Logan still tried to patch things up with his son, but Laura and I still came first for him. All the time we spent together you would think that this is how it always had been. You would never have suspected that Logan and I were not married, that our daughter had been made in a lab, cloned from her father, made into a weapon. It was like living a dream. Of course, reality always is more harsh. After M-Day, the first mutant birth happened. The X-Men, Purifiers, and a man everyone called Sinister was after the baby. Eventually the baby came into the hands of the X-Man Cable. Cyclops then ordered Logan to put X-Force together to find him, Laura was on it. I was worried but I understood why he did it. This was something she had been trained for. Eventually they found the baby and Cable escaped with it, with Scott's blessing. Things began change again though not for the better.

Lately Logan and Laura were coming and going quite frequently. They seemed to come back sullen there was this wall put up between us. Like they were now all of a sudden different from us. Not just them but several others. James Proudstar, Warren Worthington, Rahne Sinclair, even Laura's friend Josh Foley. They even started coming back with several others. A slim tattooed man they called the Vanisher, and a woman Neena Thurman, whom I can't say in all honesty I was fond of. Personally I found her a bad influence for Laura given that they were sharing company. I tried to find out what they were doing Logan, Laura, and Josh would either dodge the question or say this. "The less you know, the better." Then one of Laura's room mates, Megan Gywnn, brought me something that disturbed me. A towel covered in blood. She said Laura had used it, but Laura had said the blood wasn't hers. I knew I couldn't get anything out of Logan so I told Megan to send Laura. "You wanted to speak with me mother?" I showed her the towel. "Megan showed me this. Laura what are you doing when you leave with Logan. Please don't lie to me."... "I cannot tell you anything." "Laura are you killing again?" She looked at me in shock and ran. From then on Laura avoided me. I think I knew in my heart the truth but I couldn't bring myself to admit it.

Eventually the truth did come out. Logan, Laura and the others had put X-Force back together but this time it was a covert team of assassins. And Scott had given Logan the order to do it. I was never more angry at him. After all he had promised me, that Laura would never have to kill again. That she could be a child, he used her just like Sutter and Rice did. They disbanded X-Force and Logan had her removed, but who were we kidding, the damage had already been done. "You promised me, you gave me your word that she could be normal. You gave me your goddamn word Logan! I agreed to share custody of her, I stayed with you and her, I trusted you!" "You think I wanted her here!" "Don't you act like there was nothing you could've done. All it would've taken was one word from you." "I told her to leave the first chance I got, she didn't." "How does that excuse you Logan?" He said nothing. "I can't believe I actually pitied you when you found out about your son. Well you can forget about your second chance at being a proper father Logan, because by tomorrow I'll be gone with Laura, and don't you think about looking for us. Come Laura." As we started to walk away, "What do you want Laura?" "Logan don't you dare." "I want to be given orders." "What do you want Laura?" "Don't you put any of this on her!" "What do you want Laura?" "I DON"T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT!" "That's a start, you want orders, you want a mission, you give em to yourself for once." And with that he walked away. "Are we still leaving mother?"... "I.. don't know."

There was distance between the three of us for some time. Though for different reasons. Me I was still angry at Logan. With Laura there seemed to be something different, like she could sense something was not right with Logan. Something I couldn't see. She slept outside a lot. And her friends finding out she had been on X-Force, well they all had mixed reactions. Half of them still stood by her, the other half wondered if she was trustworthy. Then after a fire at a halfway house, something happened. Logan disappeared, again, but we all knew Laura knew why, but she wouldn't tell any of us. Everyone tried to tell them how to help her, Scott and Emma wanted structure, Ororo said we should give her more freedom, I told them Laura should be my responsibility being her mother. Surprisingly Gambit had the answer. The X-Men were now a prison to her, here she wasn't a person here, just something to be fixed. The only one who could fix Laura now was herself, and to do that she was going to have leave, me included. I caught her before she left. "Don't try to stop me mother." "Do you really feel that you have to do this?" "Yes." I hugged her. "Then go. Just remember that I love you and that you're not alone." "Goodbye mother." A little while after she left, Gambit approached me. "What is it Remy?" "Oh nuthin cher, I was jus thinkin' dat Laura could use someone to keep an eye on her. She's tough yeah, but she's still jus a kid and..." "Watch over her please. For me Remy."

Reality can be harsh, but also surprising. I soon learned why Logan had been acting so strangely. It wasn't him at all, it was a demon possessing his body while his soul was in Hell. Logan, well the demon using his body, had tried to attack me. I was saved from a most unlikely source, Mystique. And she had brought help. A man named Daimon Hellstrom and the Ghost Riders. With their help we managed to exorcise the demon out and get Logan's soul back. I stayed with him and watched him recover from the ordeal. "Didn't expect to see you after all this Sarah. Where's Laura?" "She left. She's out there trying to fix herself. Something we all failed to do." "By herself." "I sent Gambit after her." "Well at least she's in good hands. Suppose you're still angry with me." "Yes I am. But after all that's happened, really I more angry at myself. For failing Laura." "What are you talking about? You were the good parent." "If I had really had been the "good parent" she wouldn't have gone back to being a weapon. I realize why she didn't listen to you. It had been there the whole time but I didn't want to admit it. Being a weapon is the only thing she's ever known. As much as we tried to fix that, I don't think she was ever more confused than when I brought her here. Now she's gone to try to make sense of it all, figure out if a real her even exists." "I'm sorry Sarah."... "I forgive you Logan." This was the surprising part. Finding out that even after all that had happened, I still loved this man.

Some time later Scott and Logan had a falling out. An attack had injured the adult X-Men and Scott issued a call to arms for the children. Logan was not going to stand for it, and with that the X-Men split in two. Scott and his X-Men, most of the adults, stayed on Utopia and ran things like a militia. Logan took most of the young ones and children and rebuilt the school in Westchester. I went with him. Laura and Gambit soon returned and I was so happy to see her again. "I missed you so much." "I missed you to mother. Are you still angry with Logan?" "No things between us have gotten better. Your father and I are much better now." "That is good." "What's important is that you're back and we can all be a family again, the three of us Things can go back to the way they used to be." Except they couldn't. Laura had changed, she was now more in command of her life, she had learned a lot about herself in the time she had been gone, and now she didn't feel like she belonged with Logan, me, and the X-Men. Logan now had that rule about no killing if you're a child, and he still saw Laura like that. And Laura didn't want to break that rule again, but she didn't want to go with Scott who would just use her like a weapon again. Once again she found a third option the rest of us didn't see. She decided to transfer to the Avengers Academy. "You sure you don't wanna stay kid?" "No this is the right choice." "We'll miss you Laura, don't forget we love you." "I will miss you to, and I love you both to." It was hard to see her go again, but this is something every parent has to eventually face, watching their child leave to make their own way in the world. All Logan and I could hope for is that what we had taught Laura would stay with her and that she would make the right decisions. Well right now I can at least look forward to seeing my daughter come home for Christmas.


	2. Logan

In my time in the X-Men I played the role of mentor to several young girls, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, and Jubilee. There as the father those girls didn't have, keeping em on the straight and narrow. When you get to my age, you're pretty much stuck in your ways, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep the young ones from making your mistakes. All three of em turned out great. But they're not who I'm talking about today. No I'm telling you about how I met my honest to god flesh and blood daughter Laura, and the funny thing about it, she was born from a woman I had never slept with. Well not at first.

Typical day up in Westchester. Fair weather. Kids in their classes. Then Kitty shows up with an envelope addressed to me. I go through it and bub, you better believe I was pretty shocked by what I read. It's from a woman named Sarah Kinney. She said that she had been hired to create a clone of me. It was their attempt to remake Weapon X. Course she ended up cutting a few corners, probably most obvious was that the clone turned out a girl. The clone's designation was X-23. But she had realized her mistake and decided to get her out. This letter was sent to me in case she didn't make it. The last thing it read was the kid's name, Laura and a request from Sarah to me. If it turned out she was dead, she wanted me to pick up where she left off. Finish raising Laura, help her to be a kid, teach her that she's not a weapon, be a father to her.

I tracked down where this Facility was supposed to be. Instead all I found was a scorched crater. Tried to sniff around. Figured since the kid was made from my genes, she ought to have my scent. Turns out I was right. Didn't smell completely like me, but there was no mistaking. Laura had escaped and with someone. Probably her mother, no had to be her mother. Yeah Sarah made it out with her. Didn't even have to think about where they'd go next. Went back to the institute, decided I'd wait for em. The one place on Earth Sarah knew they'd be safe.

A couple weeks went by and sure enough they showed up. Took a good look at the kid. You wouldn't think looking at her that a kid this small was every bit as good at killing as me. "Weapon X." "No Laura, his name is Logan. He's your father." "But I am his clone." Yeah rehabilitating this kid wasn't gonna be a walk in the park, but hey if I could do it. "Kid we'll work this whole thing out but first I'm gonna wanna have a few words with your mother, alone." She looked at her mother, you could tell she didn't want to leave her side. "It's alright I'll be fine Laura." I had Kitty come by and run babysitting duty with her. All the while Sarah and I had our talk. She felt guilty as all hell about what had happened to Laura. She didn't expect any forgiveness, but I surprised her. I mean she risked her life to save Laura, no way this woman had a pitch black heart. She loved Laura, there was no doubt. So we came to an agreement. She could stay but we both shared custody of Laura, which she didn't object to at all.

Can't exactly say the three of us were a perfect family. For one Sarah and I didn't exactly speak much except when it concerned Laura. Not like we disliked each other, just not much reason to talk. We both pulled equal duty in rehabilitating Laura, trying to get her socialize with the other kids. Wasn't easy, she scared a lot of the kids, messed up when it came to acceptable behaviors, and she didn't really talk or interact with a lot of people except when she needed to. Slowly but surely she did manage to make friends. Kitty and Jubilee helped out a lot with that, one of my other students, Hisako, took to her to. After about a year at the school she was pretty much out of her shell and socializing came fairly easy to her. She still had her quirks, like certain slang and expressions just went over her head, but she was a lot better than when she first got here. Tell ya the truth I was a bit anxious to meet the boy brave enough to try to ask her out, so I could put the fear of God in him for laughs.

Then came M-Day, and with it, that big mysterious past of mine all of sudden got crystal clear. I remembered everything. I was born James Howlett, the son of an Alberta plantation owner. But what really rocked my world was remembering that once, I had a family, before Sarah and Laura. It was in Japan back in the 30's. Her name was Itsu, we had begun to settle down and we were expecting a child along the way. But she died, murdered, and for the longest time I thought our child died with her. Turns that wasn't the case. Our son, Daken had survived, but he hated me. Tried to reunite with my boy, went about as well as you'd think. When I came back, I felt a lot heavier. Just shut myself up in my room and did what I usually did when I was depressed, I drank. Then my door opens up and in there is Sarah. Knew why she was there, to say sorry for what happened with Daken. She had nothing to do with it, so why apologize? She also wondered why I'd waste my time trying to save him. I was just doing what any parent would do, she'd did the same for Laura, I have to save him because he's my son, because he needs me. She comes back telling me that I'm already needed here by Laura and by her. Then one thing led to another and we're both naked all over my bed.

I've loved a lot of women in the time I've been alive. Rose, Itsu, Silverfox, Mariko, Jean. They all had a couple things in common, they were all really good women, better women than I deserved, and they all died because of me. Now I said I never disliked Sarah, but I really didn't have much reason to even speak to her except when it came to Laura. Now here I was, pretty much at the lowest I could be at, and she comes by to comfort me. Tell me I'm needed here by our daughter and that she needs me to. And like that she joins the long list of women I've been with, all I can hope is that she doesn't die like they did. Rose, Itsu, Silverfox, Mariko, and Jean were angels sent to me from the heavens. Sarah's not like them. She had been hired to create a weapon from my flesh and blood. Instead she failed and gave me a child. She had taken something made from evil men, and remade it into what was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. It's in the afterglow of our night together, that I realize that I've already got what I want. I have a daughter that I'm proud of, she has a good mother, and this my chance to be the father to her I never was to my son. Sarah and I never get married, we don't exactly feel the need to, but our little family runs pretty smoothly. We get comments from everyone saying that it looks like we had always been together. I still try to patch things up with Daken, but Laura and Sarah, are always my first priority.

Course with me it's pretty much a guarantee that the good times don't last. After M-Day we had a new mutant birth. Everyone wanted to get their hands on this kid, us, the Purifiers, and Sinister. Cable got the kid, and Cyke told me to put X-Force together to get it back. He had Laura put on the team, Sarah and I didn't exactly approve but desperate times and our backs are up against the wall. When the dust settles Cyke tells me X-Force is going back into action. But this time we're killing the bad guys before they can kill us. I'm all for it up until he puts Laura on the team. He's asking me and Laura to keep secrets from her mother. Sarah trusted me to teach Laura to be human, and now he's asking me to break that trust. I tell Laura that she needs to walk away right now the first chance I get. She doesn't. And we're both living with the knowledge of what will happen when Sarah finds out. Well the truth does come out and Sarah's pretty damn pissed. Well she's got every right to be. She tells me how she ashamed she is of me, how she trusted me, how she can't believe she pitied me, that I used Laura like the bastards who made her, and that she's leaving and taking Laura with her. She gets onto me for not letting Laura make her own decisions and now she's doing the exact same thing, deciding for her. I ask Laura what she wants, girl doesn't know what she wants. She may not know what she wants, but I think she's got a pretty good idea of what she doesn't want, her parents splitting up. Luckily this is as close as to dealing with divorce as she ever gets.

There's a lot of distance between the three of us for awhile. Then things go from bad to worse. My soul all of a sudden gets pulled into hell but thanks to Mystique of all people, that gets fixed. When I finally come to in my room I notice someone's there, last person I expected to see after all that's happened, Sarah. Even after everything I've done how I've betrayed her trust, she still loves me. I take back what I said. Sarah is like Rose, Istu, Silverfox, Mariko, and Jean. She's a good woman, a better woman than I deserve, she's an angel sent to me from the heavens, and I'm not gonna let her die like they did. No this time will be different. This time I'm gonna do it right. Course Laura's not there. Sarah tell me she's gone off to find herself, she's got Gambit watching her back. Funny how that smooth talking Cajun thief is the most probably the most trustworthy person we could leave her with. Yeah Gumbo's a womanizer, but he ain't interested in little girls, guy like him wants a woman.

So yeah Sarah and I are back on speaking terms, and yeah we still go at it from time to time. We're back in Westchester after my little fallout with Summers about how we should run the X-Men. We're setting up the school again. I may be an old man stuck in his ways, but I ain't letting the young ones make my mistakes. Gotta keep em on the straight and narrow, so they can run things better than I did. Laura comes back home, and Sarah thinks now that we're all together again, things'll go back to the way they used to be. Cept that the Laura that's come back isn't the Laura that left. She went out trying find out if a real her existed, she's come back more independent, with more of an idea of who she is. For all the good we did her, I don't think she had ever been more confused than when Sarah brought her to the X-Men. Don't get me wrong things are still kind of foggy for her, but now it's starting to clear up. Now she doesn't feel like she belongs with the us and the X-Men right now. So what does she do, she transfers into the Avengers Academy. She's sure this is the right choice, it's good to hear that from her. She's made a decision and she's sticking by it. She's gotta leave her parents but every kid has to. And Sarah and I see that our little girl's growing up, we know she'll make us proud, she always has.


	3. Laura

My designation is X-23. I was the twenty-third embryo made in an attempt to clone and recreate Weapon X. The only successful one. I was not what my creators wanted. They wanted a boy, the man that boy would grow into. Instead my creator, Dr. Sarah Kinney, made me. Her defiance came with a price, that price was carrying me to term. When I was finally born, took my first breath, and cried any chance I had at a normal childhood died.

I spent my life in a cell. Never shown any emotion, never treated like a child. They did not want me to have any sense of self. If I did then I was no good to them as a weapon. If I wasn't learning combat tactics, interrogation techniques, or tracking maneuvers, I was being conditioned to kill at the drop of a chemical called Trigger Scent. When I was thirteen I had proven myself to be the perfect killer. Taking a life was as natural to me as taking a breath. I had no conscience, no morals, no emotions. Or so they thought. Zander Rice, a man who had tortured me since childhood had me kill his employer so he could seize control. I killed both Sutter and his wife, but when I found their son, a boy only three years old, hiding in his closet, afraid for his life, I heard something. A voice, it was not audible to anyone but me, because it came from my mind. I had killed children before, what made him different? Why did all of a sudden did I have this... this... feeling, this feeling that killing him was... wrong? Because Rice wanted them out of the way. He had no reason beyond his own ambitions to kill them. And for the first time I felt hate. Hate towards Rice for abusing me all my life and then using me to achieve his own ends.

When I returned I smuggled a photograph of Sutter and his family and showed it to Dr. Kinney. She realized what it meant and she told me she was going to take me away from the Facility and gave me my last mission as X-23. I killed Rice, destroyed the embryos of X-24-50, and brought the Facility to the ground. After I completed my mission, Dr Kinney put her arms around me, told me she was my mother, that my name was Laura, and that she loved me. I asked what my next mission was, she told there would be no more missions, that now I would be a child. She then told me that next we would find my father, she was referring to Weapon X. The man I was cloned from.

We arrive at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning in Westchester, New York two weeks later. It is full of other mutants. I have never seen so many in one place before. This is where we had come to see my "father". Weapon X is not what I expect in person. I was brought up told how he had been made into the ultimate killing machine, when I see the man for the first time, all he does is look at me. He is studying me, there is curiosity, fascination in his eyes. He has never imagined that I could exist. He takes my mother away to speak with her in private and leaves me with another mutant named Kitty Pryde. He tells her she is "pulling babysitting duty." "Well while your mom and Logan talk things out, you want anything, snack, drink?" "I have already eaten, I do not require food at this time." "Okay, well how bout we just talk then?" "Talk... about what?" "Anything really it doesn't matter." I do not understand why she wishes to talk. There is no purpose to it. "Why?" "Well you're gonna be living here so I think we should get to know each other. How bout this, we'll take turns asking and answering questions from each other, I'll even let you go first. You can ask me anything." There is one thing I want to know. "What is the nature of your relationship to Weapon X?" "Okay first off his name is Logan, or Wolverine, or I guess in your case dad or daddy." So many names for one man, but they are not like the false identities I have used on missions. "Now as for my relationship with him, well when I first came to the X-Men he looked after me, taught me a lot of things. He's been my mentor for a good chunk of my life. He's a good friend to have. Granted he's not the nicest person but he's a good man."

Kitty and I trade questions for over forty-five minutes. I learn much about Logan, how his past is largely a mystery to him because of what Weapon X did to him, how he has been used to kill like me, and how he is here to try right the wrongs of the world and the ones he has done. I feel something again, for Logan. I see what he has accomplished, and I want to do it as well. Kitty calls it admiration, that it means I want to be like my father. Logan and my mother than approach me, he sends Kitty away. "Alright kid we talked things over and here's how it's gonna work. You and your mother are gonna stay here. We're gonna get you enrolled in the school, help you out, and we're gonna share custody of you." I am confused at the last one. "He means we're going to make things so that we're your parents Laura." "I do not understand, you said you are my parents." "Yeah but this is to make it all legal and stuff. Nuthin' ya gotta be concerned about, but you need to know." I consider what they have said for a moment. "Logan, will I have to start calling you dad?" He ruffles my hair and lets out a small laugh. "You can call me whatever ya want pumpkin. Well cept Weapon X. I ain't too fond of that." I feel something, this must be happiness.

Logan and mother spend the week working on legal documentation to prove they are my parents. They work out a birth certificate, mother says my birthday is August 2nd ,1995. I am roomed with a girl named Cessily Kinkaid. She is a mutant made of some sort of mercury-like substance. This sort of ability would make her a extremely versatile weapon. She is very energetic, very excitable. "Yeah well I was a cheerleader at my old school so I like had to be all peppy and stuff." "What is a cheerleader?" "Well schools have sports teams, you know what those are right?" "I have watched sports with Logan." "Good, that's one less thing I have to explain. Now what cheerleaders are there for is morale. They're there to get people excited about the game, make everyone on the team feel like they can win, we lead the crowd in cheering them on, hence cheerleader." Cessily is very friendly, she helps me in trying to socialize at the school, something that does not come easy to me. With her help I make friends with several other students, Josh Foley, Kevin Ford, Megan Gwynn, Soorya Qadir, and Hisako Ichiki. However my former life as an assassin makes a lot of the students apprehensive of me. Which Logan, mother, Kitty, and Cessily say will go away once they all "get to know me." Academically I do very well in most of my classes. I find myself enjoying AP calculus, chemistry, and biology the most. They have practical uses. I am excused from combat training as Logan is confident that I do not require any, but he allows me to sit in on one class so my skills do not dull. I do not do so well in my History and English classes. As long as I am required to memorize something I have no problem, but things like book reports or history essays that require me to have an opinion are where I struggle. My parents and friends help me with those things as best they can. After a year at the Institute I feel at home.

Then M-Day comes and overnight 90% of the mutant population is depowered. I and most of my friends are still among them. However when we send the depowered students away they are killed by a rocket attack from a group known as the Purifiers. Some time later the Purifiers stage an attack on the school but their leader, William Stryker is killed by Josh, which surprises everyone, including myself. Josh has healing abilities now he has found a way to use it to kill, and it terrifies him. His gold skin turns pitch black and he isolates himself from us. A nimrod sentinel then attacks the X-Man Forge and my teammate Nori asks us to go save him. The nimrod is a difficult opponent, it seems to have AI that allows it to adapt defenses to whatever combat scenario it is in. We do manage to destroy it but I end up taking a blast from its cannon in the process. The blast overtaxes my healing factor and I begin to die. Another teammate of mine, Julian Keller, flies me back to the mansion just in time and somehow Josh is able to heal me. Logan and mother scold me later, "What were you thinking you could have have been killed?" "I am sorry mother." She hugs me. "Oh Laura what's important is that you're alive." "Still we gotta work out a punishment for her." says Logan.

Logan has me grounded for the next week, in that time I am not allowed any combat practice or on missions, and I am confined to my room when not in class. There is a positive to it though. I am given a lot of time to think, and I begin to notice that Julian is on my mind a lot since the nimrod incident. Cessily says I have a crush on him, that it means that I like him like him. "What?" "Um... it means that you like Julian the way um.." She spends about fifteen seconds trying to complete her analogy and then snaps her fingers and says, "I got it! You know how your mom looks at your dad?" "What?" "Are you serious you haven't noticed?" "My parents do not speak or interact with each other unless it concerns me." "Well your mom's been eying your dad a lot lately." I think back and I remember, my last birthday, mother had her gaze fixed on Logan almost half the time but looked away when he began to notice, the same thing happened at Storm's engagement party, and lately mother had been asking a lot about Logan. "You wanna go spy on em?" "But I am grounded." "Pshaw Laura, as long as we don't get caught we'll be fine." Cessily and I go to investigate my mother. She is not in her office, so we go to her room. She is not there either. "Oh... my... god." "What does it mean?" "It means that there's only one place your mom could be right now. Your dad's room... and that means." "What does it mean?" "You'll find out when we get there." Cessily winks at me. She knows something, why will she not tell me? We stop outside Logan's door and Cessily says we should just listen. All I hear is Logan say something about his son. "Whoa you have a brother, I mean yeah it sucks that he hates your dad, and he's evil and all but..." "Shh, their scents have changed." "Huh?" "They are releasing heavy amounts of sex hormones." "Oh my god they're actually gonna do it." "I wish to observe it." "Yeah, wait what?" I decide to head to the roof so I can get observe them from Logan's bedroom window and Cessily follows behind me. "Laura trust me, you do not wanna see your parents having sex, it'll scar you for life." "Whose parents are doing what now?" Santo Vaccaro, Rockslide, has heard part of what Cessily said. "Santo why do you think I'll tell you when you can't keep your mouth shut about anything." "Aw c'mon Cess" "No." Rockslide is useful as a distraction, I can slip away and observe what my parents are up to. I am on the roof above Logan's room. Using my claws to scale the wall I try to place myself in a good vantage point to observe them. I peer into the window and see the naked bodies of my parents grinding against each other. This would be the act of sexual intercourse that mother described to me. That when a man and a woman love each other emotionally, they express it physically through sex. I do not see why Cessily was so apprehensive about observing it. I then begin to wonder if I could ever do this with Julian.

Ever since I observed my parents having sex, they seem to have become much closer. The three of us spend a lot more time together, though Logan is still trying to repair his relationship with his son. Some of the X-Men say Logan and mother look like an actual married couple with a child. Megan actually wonders if they actually will get married, which everyone doubts. From what I observe they do not feel the need to, but I do not care. I like that they are talking with each other more, I actually feel like I have a real family. I've lately found myself wondering at what my life could have been like if my parents had gotten married and I had been born from one of their acts of sex. Cessily says she has a hard time picturing Logan actually raising me since he doesn't seem like the type that gets along well with children.

Sometime later a new mutant is born. The X-Men, the Purifiers, and someone named Sinister all want this baby. The baby is then taken by the X-Man Cable and Cyclops orders Logan to put together X-Force to track him and retrieve the baby. My parents do not want me on X-Force but do not question Cyclops as the X-Men have run out of options. Our mission is successful though we lose the mutant Caliban. Cable manages to escape with the baby and sometime later Cyclops tells me I am being reassigned to X-Force again. This time X-Force will seek out threats to the mutant population and eliminate them before they have the opportunity to act. Logan tell me to leave. He tells me this is why my mother risked her life. So that I would not have to kill again. And being here means that we will have to keep secrets from her, something we have never done. I do not listen to him and all he says to me is , "Fine. Your life." Later on I begin to see what he meant. Megan comes to tell me that my mother wishes to speak with me. When I go to her, she shows me a towel covered in blood that I had used. None of the blood is mine, but I can see on her face what mother is suspecting. "Laura are you killing again?" I cannot face her anymore, so I run. I spend the next few months avoiding her so I do not have to lie to her. Then the truth about X-Force becomes known to the X-Men, mother included. She is angry, at Logan. I have never seen her this angry. She berates Logan for betraying her trust and threatens to leave and take me with her. Logan asks what I want. I do now know what I want. We do not leave, but there is distance now between the three of us.

I have nightmares lately. Where I am outrunning a tidal wave of blood across a barren wasteland. Eventually I come across Logan but he is not Logan. He is a demon from Hell wearing his body like a suit. He offers me to be his right hand in Hell, he offers me power. Every time I give the same answer, "No." I have been sleeping outside by myself because of this. Logan is different. He is not himself, and no one but me seems able to see it. Logan told me on my first X-Force mission that if I did this, I wouldn't be like the rest of the X-Men ever again. He was right. Now half of my friends do not trust me anymore. Nori questions if we were ever friends at all, if all I wanted to really do was kill. Cyclops puts me to work at a halfway house and there I am attacked by the demon again. Back at the hospital the demon makes another advance on me and stabs Julian. He makes me an offer to prove I have a soul for Julian's life and I am taken inside my mind. While in there I learn something about myself that I had never realized till now. I was not born a killer, I had to be made into one. I was normal once and I can be again. It will take work but I can do it. So when the demon makes the offer again, I choose a third option. I choose myself.

After my last encounter with the demon, I decide that the only way I can change is if no one is there to judge me. So I leave, mother sees me off. Sometime later Gambit catches up with me, saying that he had sent himself with my mother's blessing. He is here to keep an eye on me and watch my back. I learn many things about myself while traveling with him. I am a killer, but it is not all I am. I can do anything I want with my life, I can be anyone or anything I want. I have people who love me, care about me, and need me. But I also learn something else, that I no longer want Julian anymore. I don't have the same feelings towards him that I used to. He still means something to me, but not like he used to. When I get back to the school in Westchester, Logan has set up I feel like a stranger in there. Logan now has a rule of no killing if you are child, and he still sees me like I'm a child. I do not want to be around him if I end up breaking that rule. I don't want him to be ashamed of me. But I can't go back to Cyclops either, he will use me like a weapon again. Once again a third option presents itself. I decide to transfer to the Avengers Academy. I wish I did not have to leave when my parents had just fixed their relationship but this is the right choice. They both tell me that they're proud that I am making my own decisions and tell me they'll be waiting for me.


End file.
